In a test class, I have a common piece of code that I use for setting up an object before multiple tests.
For some reason, NCrunch is marking this code (in a test class) with a black dot as "Not covered by any tests".
First off, this is nonsense, as I have at least a half dozen tests which call this method right at the beginning of the test.
However, this is kind of irrelevant, since this is code in my test class, and I'm not writing tests to test my tests.

I figured I could take care of this problem by putting comments around the method : "//ncrunch: no coverage start" and "//ncrunch: no coverage end", but no dice. The method is still marked as not covered.
Stopping and restarting the NCrunch engine makes no difference, and restarting Visual Studio also makes no difference.

What's going on here, and how can I fix it?
Also as side note, is there a good way to get NCrunch to just ignore my test projects altogether when calculating code coverage?
I would have thought that would be the default behavior, but I guess not.

I did run across that document yesterday, and thought that I understood what it was saying.
Based on my experience here, perhaps I do not.



I have just tried this, to no effect.



Sure. Please take a look at the segment of code below. (Note that I am using xUnit for our testing framework here, hence the "[Fact]" decorators.)
This is the snippet of my test code that I am asking about - specifically, the CreateTradingPartnerService() method is being marked by NCrunch with a black dot and the message "No tests are covering this line."
This, despite the fact that #1, this code is surrounded by the appropriate comments, which should exclude it from coverage analysis, and #2 it is being called from both of the tests immediately below, as well as several more similarly structured tests I have not included.





In the Metrics window, the test projects are being excluded appropriately, and percentages are being calculated correctly. Indeed, in the Metrics window, everything is correct even if I remove the "no coverage" comments. The only issue appears in the code itself, where NCrunch flags particular lines with a colored dot to indicate testing status. This inline indicator does not appear to respect the comments, nor does it recognize that the code is covered.

I'll do that.



I've tried, but I can't see a way to attach a screenshot to this post. I also attempted to upload the screenshot to the "My Albums" page.
I first got an error that my image was too large (about 450K?), and then after cropping it down, upload attempts resulted in "cannot find image..." errors, with an odd path to C:\Inetpub\forum...

I can't upload to a common image sharing or file sharing site either, as those are blocked by company policy.

I may be stuck on this one, but I can describe it to you.

If you look at the code snippet I shared in my previous post, the line "private TradingPartnerService CreateTradingPartnerService() {" has a black dot next to it ("No tests are covering this line", and the lines "public void nullMessage() {" and "public void populatedMessage() {" each have green carets next to them ("Test starts on this line").



I tried a few things - changing the name of the method, allowing intellisense to highlight areas that were calling it, and then changing it back.
No reaction from NCrunch on that one.
I changed the method from private to public, but again, no reaction from NCrunch.
I deleted the method altogether, and the black dot went away. Then I pasted it back in, and NCrunch worked for a few seconds (presumably re-compiling and running the tests), after which the black dot came back.



Yes, that is exactly the tooltip message I get when I hover over the black dot.

I'll note that in the rest of my code (outside of this test module), NCrunch is correctly identifying code that is and is not covered by tests.
It just seems to be getting confused by this method that is being called within the test code.

AH HA!

So in the process of trying to create a code sample that would reproduce this issue, I finally figured out what is causing it.
It's still a bug, but at least I know what the problem is.

I created a little HelloWorld console app with a test project that should have reproduced the problem, but was unable to. The code looked exactly the same, but NCrunch was working just fine. So, I started adding everything I could think of that my previous code was using, trying to get the error to happen again.
This finally led me to the thing that caused the issue. Since I nailed it down, I will just describe the steps to reproduce it below, rather than submitting a code sample as you requested. Now that I know, it's pretty easy to reproduce.
Oh, also note, I did submit a bug through the menu option in Visual Studio on this already as well. The bug references this forum thread, if that helps you to find it.
Fair warning: Skip to the last paragraph for the TL;DR; summary - I get a bit long-winded here describing the source of the issue. *chuckle*

We just purchased NCrunch recently. Prior to that, we were just using Visual Studio's built-in test runner platform to run our tests, and the built-in code analysis functionality to determine test coverage (System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis). That package will recognize and ignore test using Microsoft's testing libraries, but it doesn't know to ignore xUnit tests (which is odd, since it recognizes them as tests for code coverage purposes *sigh*).
In any case, we were having a similar issue with our xUnit tests at that time - namely, the test methods were showing up as not being covered by tests, which brought our code coverage percentage down (slightly different from NCrunch, which reported the coverage correctly, but marked the code inline as not being covered).
In any case, the solution to this problem is similar to the way NCrunch uses the "no coverage" comment markers. Instead, you can use a decorator on your code (by method or by class) to tell the analysis engine to ignore it: "[ExcludeFromCodeCoverage]". Because we had been using MS's built-in functionality, these decorators were still on all of my test classes.

TL;DR; - The problem seems to be caused by a conflict between NCrunch and the [ExcludeFromCodeCoverage] decorator in the System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis library.
To reproduce the issue, just create a test project in Visual Studio, add a simple test that calls a set-up method that is not decorated as an independent test, and enable NCrunch. (Note that while we are using xUnit, I tried it with the Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.UnitTesting framework, and it had the same effect; so xUnit is not related to this issue at all.) You will see green in-line dots and caret as you would expect, indicating that this is a test and it is fully covered.
Now, add a using clause for System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis and put the [ExcludeFromCodeCoverage] decorator above your test class. You will see the NCrunch dots change.

Here is a code sample:



I think that covers it. Now I know how to avoid the problem on my side, and hopefully you have enough information on your side to address the issue in NCrunch (or at least document it).
Please let me know if you need any additional information from me.

Thanks so much for your help!

No problem, and thanks for your help as well!
I really appreciate your quick responses.

I'm guessing the issue hasn't come up before because if you're using NCrunch, then it's unlikely you would also be using Visual Studio's test coverage analysis as well.
In my case, it was a holdover from before we got NCrunch, so it was easy enough to just remove.

Anyway, thanks again!